Home Sweet Home
By: Maxine M.

A drive in the country, the clean air should help me relax & clear my head
The chaos of the week…mental cobwebs & frustration, this has led
Lungs need to be rid of pollution, smog is heavy today the paper said

OH great!!, the temperature gauge reads “HOT”, better stop at this old farmstead for awhile
An old dilapidated house, ramshackle barn, no neighbors for at least a mile
Once, a family had lived here for a faded sign said “Home Sweet Home”…that made me smile

“Home”!!, a safe secure place to call one’s own…the American Dream
From all over the world, ancestors had come in a migrating stream
“Home”…the very word invokes memories, mostly from childhood it would seem

For like his old house, my childhood home too had long ago been deserted
But had once been a place where “family ties” had been asserted
Home!!, where family “history”, customs & traditions, were unquestionably inserted

This house likely had also resounded with children’s laughter
Hopes & dreams whispered between siblings amongst those attic rafters
Secrets, special memories only they would share…to take to the “here after”

The thought of HOME brings comfort, eases life’s heartache and pain
Memories of burying down in quilts on a cold winter night or listening to summer’s soft gentle rain
Of laying in tall grass, just watching clouds or birds…hearing the sound of a south bound crane

Now a HOUSE isn’t really a HOME until love dwells within its walls
When understanding, fairness, equality roams its halls
And there’s non-judgmental HELP and encouragement when one member falls

Abruptly, a thought arises…for SOME, “home” wasn’t anything like THAT
For THEM, home was a battleground…a war zone of combat
Where children were abused, neglected, belittled…self esteem & confidence squashed flat

Home was a place children couldn’t wait to leave, in desperation & despair
To go out into the cold cruel world, with no way to prepare
Without the love and support God intended a family to share

Devoid of those examples, will THEIR house just be a place to dwell?
Just an “investment”, a chance for a profit when it’s time to resell
Never a real “home” with wonderful family stories to tell

Suddenly, I remember the promise of Jesus to those who believe on His name
That those who TRUST in the redemption of His blood, are free of guilt & shame
That He PERSONALLY is preparing a “HOME” for ALL who are His…EVERYONE will be the same

A glorious ETERNAL HOME, we’ll never need to remodel or redecorate
And NOTHING in the future will ever make us have to relocate
All will KNOW the magnificent wonder the word HOME will generate

By now my engine was cooled, time to head back…back to big city ways
But silently I prayed for whoever lived here in by-gone days
And that MY children will have FOND memories when into the past THEY gaze

My spirits are lifted…memories of home have such a way of exciting
And the “prospect” of going HOME with Jesus is just plain delighting
Words of an old song come to mind…words that couldn’t be sweeter or more inviting

In memory I hear…Softly & tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you & for me
Come home, come home you who are weary, come home…wonderful, don’t you agree?
Gone will be the chains of trouble that bind us…In our new HOME we’ll ALL be set FREE!